Tag Archives: Ozone

How Ozone Depletion Affects UV Levels

Scientists predict that ozone depletion should peak around year 2010. As world-wide controls reduce the release of CFCs and other ozone-eating substances, nature will repair the ozone layer. By year 2065 stratospheric ozone should return to the amount present in 1980. Until then, we can expect higher levels of UV radiation at the Earth’s surface. We need to take care to avoid the bad health effects that could result from too much UV radiation.

What Is Stratospheric Ozone?

Ozone is a natural gas that is found in two different layers of the atmosphere. One layer, called the troposphere, is at the Earth’s surface where we live. Ozone in the troposphere is “bad” because it dirties the air and helps make smog, which is unhealthful to breathe. The other layer, called the stratosphere, is miles above the Earth’s surface. Ozone in the stratosphere is “good” because it protects life on Earth by absorbing some of the sun’s harmful UV rays. Stratospheric ozone is found most often between six and 30 miles above the Earth’s surface.

What Is Being Done?

Countries around the world, including the United States, have seen the threats created by ozone depletion and agreed to a treaty called the Montreal Protocol. This Protocol will help humans to stop making and using ozone-eating chemicals.

First North Pole Ozone Hole Forming?”Put on your sunscreen”—damaging air mass could drift far south.Main ContentPolar stratospheric clouds over the Arctic Circle. Stratospheric clouds in the Arctic file picture worsen ozone loss, experts say.Photograph from Picture Press/AlamyChristine Dell’AmoreNational Geographic NewsPublished March 22, 2011Spawned by strangely cold temperatures, “beautiful” clouds helped strip the Arctic atmosphere of most of its protective ozone this winter, new research shows.The resulting zone of low-ozone air could drift as far south as New York, according to experts who warn of increased skin-cancer risk.The stratosphere’s global blanket of ozone—about 12 miles 20 kilometers above Earth—blocks most of the sun’s high-frequency ultraviolet UV rays from hitting Earth’s surface, largely preventing sunburn and skin cancer.

GENEVA — The protective ozone layer in the Arctic that keeps out the sun’s most damaging rays – ultraviolet radiation – has thinned about 40 percent this winter, a record drop, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday.

The Arctic’s damaged stratospheric ozone layer isn’t the best known “ozone hole” – that would be Antarctica’s, which forms when sunlight returns in spring there each year. But the Arctic’s situation is due to similar causes: ozone-munching compounds in air pollutants that are chemically trigged by a combination of extremely cold temperatures and sunlight.

Ozone hole over Romania on March 30-31. Doctors warn about carcinogenic effects!

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A large part of the ozone layer grew thin in the North Pole region and scientists warn that it will get to Scandinavia and Eastern Europe on March 30 and 31, warning Romania as well, according to euractiv.com.

The fast-thinning Arctic ozone layer was first detected by an international network of over 30 ozone sounding stations spread across the Arctic and sub-Arctic, and coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. The institute’s latest predictions, based on data collated from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, are that it will affect parts of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe on 30 March and 31 March.

Record breaking ozone hole over the Arctic spring 2011 driven by climate change

Over the past few days ozone-depleted air masses extended from the north pole to southern Scandinavia leading to higher than normal levels of ultraviolet UV radiation during sunny days in southern Finland. These air masses will move east over the next few days, covering parts of Russia and perhaps extend as far south as the Chinese/Russian border. Such excursions of ozone-depleted air may also occur over Central Europe and could reach as far south as the Mediterranean.

At an international press conference by the World Meteorological Organisation WMO in Vienna April 5, atmospheric researcher Dr. Markus Rex from Germany´s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association AWI pointed out that the current situation in the Arctic ozone layer is unparalleled.

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